Strange Meeting

By Sally

When I was shopping at Fry’s I was slowly going along the aisle watching the item directories to see if there was anything I was forgetting (even though I had my list, sometimes it’s missing something).

As I started down the aisle alongside the meat counter, I had a front to front encounter with a man also going along slowly. But as we looked at each other, I noticed his eyes – even though he was neatly dressed with a nicely combed white beard, I couldn’t help looking into his eyes.

They were large – wide open – more of partly closed – just naturally that way. His face had a peaceful appearance, pleasant to look at, but his eyes showed some sadness – sorrow – like loneliness.

The odd thing was we both stood face to face, just looking at each other. It probably wasn’t any more than a minute, but it seemed like more. We didn’t speak, but went on our way.

I came up around the veggie area and got a side salad at the deli counter, picked up some pastry bites at the bakery and headed toward the checkout counter. As I approached the first through aisle, coming up from the back of the store, there again the pleasant man and I met face to face. And, yes, once again we just looked at each other – in our eyes – not saying a word or even a smile from either one of us. After a moment we moved on.

When I got home and relaxed, I kept thinking of this man for some reason. I don’t know why. His face stayed in my thoughts – nice thoughts – and I pondered on the sadness in his eyes.

I asked the Lord as I got ready to say my nightly prayers about the man and started to talk to God about my encounter. After a while I felt at ease and went to bed.

After thought, usually when you meet someone like that, you pardon yourself and go around that person and they do the same. But this was different!